


Carry Me

by HMS_Chill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: ALSO I've only been to Paris once so uh..., Also my brick is an ocean away so uh..., Also there's a side character named Jean, And I hate researching medicine so meh, Angst, Blood Loss, Canon Era, Canon era except I did v little research, Hurt/Comfort, I mean I researched public transport but that bit got cut, If anything's wrong on that front that's why, Like it's def gay but it's not as obvious as normal, M/M, Post-Barricade, R is a dumbass but like... lowkey, So sorry again if I messed stuff up there, This hurt, Weirdly not super Enjoltaire-y, au where they're NOT all dead, galaxy brain is EVERYONE is named jean, just a lil, just like... most of them, small brain is they're all named Jeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18710590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMS_Chill/pseuds/HMS_Chill
Summary: The silence wakes Grantaire after the barricade has fallen, but he's not going down without a fight.(Based onthis postfrom g-hostly-g on tumblr)





	Carry Me

Something is wrong. It’s silent in the café when he wakes up, and after the chaos and noise of the night before, that should be good news. Grantaire can’t trust it. Logically, the silence is a good sign, but he can’t shake the fear, the absolute certainty that something is catastrophically wrong, that’s woken him up. His darting eyes find the body of Gavroche lying on a table across the café, covered with a blanket but with a mop of curls hanging out. Everything is horribly, horribly wrong.

He hears a step above him, and he makes his way past the body of the child (the child he’d promised Eponine he’d watch over if he had to, and he’d had to, and he’d been useless) and up the stairs to the café’s upper room. There, the morning light catches Enjolras’s curls as he stands near the window, his chest heaving and his eyes on fire. For a moment, Grantaire sees nothing else. He doesn’t see the bodies of their friends on the ground, nor does he see the four National Guard soldiers until one moves, blocking his view of the sun. They’ve formed a lose line between Grantaire and the window that Enjolras stands against, clutching their red flag with the same dedication and strength that he does everything. The leader of the Guards points a gun at Enjolras, and Grantaire is in motion almost immediately, throwing a punch that spoils the guard’s aim as he pulls the trigger. He hears Enjolras grunt, but he ignores it for now, pouring all of the pain and anger pent up over the last twenty-four hours into the most important boxing match of his life. The guard who shot Enjolras falls at a blow to the chin, and the one approaching Grantaire from the side cowers at a knee to the groin. There’s another shot from behind him. He hopes it’s not aimed at Enjolras. Pain explodes through his shoulder, but he ignores it. Two guards left. There’s a thud behind him. He turns. Enjolras is on the ground, but his hand is holding a guard’s ankle. The guard kicks him. Enjolras holds on. Grantaire turns to hit the final guard in the jaw, as the second escapes down the stairs. Enjolras’s guard gets free and comes for Grantire with his pistol raised, but the range is better suited to Grantaire’s left hook. He’s down in a moment, and Grantaire scans the room for Enjolras.

At first, all he sees is red. Not because he’s angry, though he certainly is, but simply because it’s everywhere. The red of Enjolras’s blood seeps into the red of his coat and the red of the flag that has fallen beside him. The red leaks out onto his marble forehead, drawn there by the guard’s boot. Not far away, puddles of red surround the limp bodies of their friends. A touch of red has even appeared on Grantaire’s shoulder, infecting his green and white clothes with a pain he will continue to ignore for as long as possible. There is so much red, and the silent stillness of everything being wrong is back. For a moment that feels like ages, Grantaire is sure that the red has overpowered Enjolras’s gold, and the silence quenched his fiery speech. Then the red chest heaves, and the red lips cough, and Grantaire is scrambling to kneel beside the red body. 

“Enjolras? Enjolras, look at me. Come on, please.”

Their entire relationship, summed up in a single request. Each outburst, each comment, every mistake had been a silent plea. Look at me. Acknowledge our shared space. We are here together, you and I. Even the glares he usually received in response were an acknowledgement of some sort. Grantaire has spent so long withering under the glare of those eyes, but now when they turn to him, the glare is gone. The eyes are hazy, but they are open and alive. After an eternity, they focus on Grantaire, and the red lips part. His name comes out as something between a sob and a gasp. 

“It’s okay. It… don’t… Well, it’s going to be okay. I’m… we’ll get you fixed up, don’t worry.”

“’Ferre… ‘Ferre knows what to do.” Grantaire nods, not trusting himself to speak. Combeferre is lying not far away, a red puddle near his head staining the floorboards. When he’s confident that he’ll be able to keep his voice from shaking, he says, “I know. But we need to get out of here right now; one of the guards got away and he could be back. Can you stand?”

Enjolras tries. He pushes himself up with shaking arms, only to let out whimpers of pain at the slightest movement, more redness seeping from beneath the red coat. 

“If we are to get out of here, I’m afraid you'll have to carry me.”

“If you will permit it.”

“I will. I want to live just as you do.”

“Very well. I’m… I’m going to pick you up, alright? And I’m going to get you to a doctor. You’re going to be okay,” Grantaire says, trying his best to hide his panic as he gets his arms under Enjolras’s shoulders and legs. They have to get out. He’s not sure what the next step after that will be, but for now, getting down the stairs is a priority. 

Enjolras lets out a grunt of pain as Grantaire lifts him, echoing the shout from Grantaire’s bad shoulder. 

“Sorry,” Grantaire murmurs as Enjolras’s face buries itself in his good shoulder. Enjolras’s eyes close as they leave, and as they travel together through the destruction of the ruined barricade, Grantaire can’t find it in himself to ask them to open. He carries their leader past the bodies of their friends, his heart breaking as they abandon them. They leave Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Bossuet behind as they descend the stairs, passing Eponine and Gavroche in the café as they reach the destruction of the street. Feuilly and Bahorel have fallen nearly on top of each other. Joly was on his knees when he was shot, and his body is slumped over the corpse of a man Grantaire stood beside but whose name he never learned. He doesn’t see Marius’s body anywhere, but as they slip beyond the barricade, he catches sight of a red braid and knows he’s found what remains of Jehan. He wishes he had the ability to return the body to its friends.

He doesn’t realize he’s started to cry until Enjolras’s eyes open and a strained voice says, “Is it… rain? Rain is good. The plants…”

The voice trails off, and Grantaire can’t stand the quiet anymore.  
“Stay with me, Enjolras. Please. Just keep talking. Tell me about the plants?”

“They need… It’s been dry.” Enjolras’s eyes are still closed. Grantaire’s shoulder throbs. He’s not sure where to go. 

“The plants need a drink,” Enjolras continues, and Grantaire pulls the body closer. He needs a drink, too. The thought of drinks reminds him of a doctor he used to drink with, though, one he would go to when he’d been in a bar fight and was too ashamed to tell Combeferre or Joly what had happened. The doctor had recently taken up cards, and he was not good at them. It is barely a hint of a hope, but Grantaire clings to it like a lifeline. 

“You’re right. They… they’re going to get a drink, though. All the gardens will be green, and the children…”

He’d planned to say something about children playing in puddles and making mud pies in the freshly watered gardens, but he can’t chase the image of Gavroche’s limp body from his mind. He can’t forget that mop of curls poking out from beneath the blanket. He’d promised to protect the boy, but he’d drunk himself to sleep instead. Another tear slips down his face to splash onto Enjolras’s like a raindrop. 

“’Ferre lives the other way.” Grantaire looks down to see Enjolras’s eyes open, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“I know. But he… he’s not available right now, so we’re going to visit a friend of mine instead. He’ll help us for now.” Enjolras nods, his eyes closing and his head flopping back onto Grantaire’s good shoulder. 

“’Ferre is helping at the barricade. He’s fixing Gav,” Enjolras says, as casually and confidently as if he’d said that the sky was blue. Grantaire just nods, fighting harder against the tears that threaten to overwhelm him. 

“That’s right,” he says eventually. “Everything… it’s all okay.” It’s quiet for a moment, and in that silence he desperately tries to believe his own lie. Then Enjolras’s eyes open again, and they’re glassy.

“Where are we going?”

“To see my friend. He’s going to fix you up.”

“And you. You’re bleeding,” Enjolras says, doing his best to point at Grantaire’s bad shoulder. Grantaire follows his point to the shoulder he’d been trying his best to ignore. It’s radiating pain out to the whole side of his body, and the redness has spread down his arm.

“It’s not bad,” he lies. “It doesn’t matter. We just need you better.”

“No, you… you need it. You can’t paint with a hurt arm and you need to paint.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, Jehan… Jehan says you need to paint, and Combeferre says I need to do better at thinking about other people. He says I can be harsh when I don’t mean to be. I… I’ve been too harsh with you, and I wanted to apologize last night ,but you were asleep and I thought we’d have more time.”

“We do. We have plenty of time for whatever you want to say when you’re better. Just hang on; we’re almost there.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been cruel to you.”

“I haven’t been any better. I antagonized you, and I’m sorry. I deserved those outbursts.”

“No, I… I was awful. And now you’re hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just… talk to me. Tell me something else,” Grantaire says. His arms have started to shake, but he doesn’t dare shift Enjolras’s position in his arms and risk making things worse. The other man’s face is pale normally, but it’s been getting steadily paler as they travel, and a sheen of sweat is mixing with the blood on his forehead. 

“I’m… I’m tired. Combeferre says I should sleep more, but there’s no time. Something is coming, and we have to be ready, but maybe… maybe a nap would be okay.”

“No, Enjolras. No naps. You have to work on a speech for that big thing that’s coming.”

“You’re right I… I have to be ready.”

“Tell me the plan,” Grantaire says, scanning the buildings and trying to remember which one his friend lives in. In their state, a wrong door could put them right back in the hands of the national guard. 

“We need to approach Lamarck with our list of requests from the workers Feuilly met and the women Munchetta spoke with,” Enjolras says, and Grantaire nods. If Enjolras has forgotten that Lamarck is dead, has forgotten the hellscape of the past day, far be it from Grantaire to remind him. Enjolras rambles about a plan that will never come to fruition as Grantaire looks for the door, trying to ignore the pain from his shoulder and his ever-growing fear that something will go horribly wrong. Enjolras’s voice has gotten shaky when Grantaire shushes him. He’s found the door they need, and he manages to knock without jostling Enjolras too much. When he looks down, Enjolras’s face is nearly white, his eyes closed. The blood on his forehead only makes the skin around it seem paler by comparison, and on his side, Grantaire’s not sure where the blood stain ends and the red of the coat begins. There’s so much blood.

The door opens, and a man Grantaire drank and boxed with mere days ago is standing there.

“Jean, please, he…”

“You cannot be here. If you’ve come from the barricades, you put my whole house at risk.”

“I need you to save him. I know it’s a gamble, but you’ve never backed away from a gamble before. If… if you treat him, I will forgive every debt you or your son have ever owed me. I’ll go to gambling dens and pay your debts there. I’ll teach you to play and win. I’ll… I’ll do anything you need, just please. Help him.” The edges of Grantaire’s world have started to fade away as the bullet wound in his own shoulder starts to really take its toll. If they can’t find help here, they will bleed out together in the street, and all that their journey will have accomplished will be to separate their bodies from the bodies of their friends. 

“Follow me,” Jean orders, stepping back to allow them inside. Grantaire follows as soon as his feet will obey his order to move. 

“Give him to me.” While Grantaire knows that this is best, he hates to let Enjolras go. He allows the doctor to take his friend, but he bends to press a kiss to Enjolras’s forehead as he does. Jean laying Enjolras’s body on a dining room table is the last thing Grantaire sees before the darkness overcomes him and his body collapses onto the floor. 

-

He wakes briefly to find himself on the same table as Enjolras, something prodding inside his shoulder. He manages to grab Enjolras’s hand with his good arm before the pain overwhelms him and he plunges back into blissful blackness. 

-

When he wakes the next time, that hand is still clutching his own. It’s colder, and it’s dark and damp. A cellar of some sort. He tries to push himself upright, but someone stops him as soon as he moves his free arm. Even so, the pain radiating from it is enough to leave him breathless. 

“Rest, Grantaire,” Enjolras’s voice says from the darkness above him. “We’re safe. Your… you convinced your friend’s son to leave the barricade last night, and he returned safely thanks to you. Your friend is arranging transportation out of the city as soon as night falls.”

“You’re… you’re leaving Paris?” Part of Grantaire believed that Enjolras couldn’t live outside of the city any more than a fish could live outside of water. Enjolras lived and breathed Paris, and he’d dedicated his life to making it better. Surely he couldn’t just leave. 

“Only until we have both healed. Paris is my home, but last night was not easy on either of us. If we’re going to get better, this is not the place for it.”

“I cannot speak for her people, but I know that she will welcome you back with open arms as soon as you’re able to return. I’ll make sure to find someone to update you regularly on her recovery process.”

“Her recovery is not the one I’m worried about. Grantaire—”

“Your own then, but you have nothing to fear. Jean has set my nose and sewn me up more times than I would like to admit. I wouldn’t have risked your life in the hands of someone untrained, Apollo, who do you take me for?”

“I trust the doctor, and I know my own healing process. I worry about you.”

The retort dies in Grantaire’s mouth, apparently taking all of the moisture with it. Enjolras is leaving Paris in mere hours, undoubtedly in immense pain, and he is worried about Grantaire. The drunk, the cynic, the hopeless fool who had attached himself to their revolution like a tick to a dog. Who he would undoubtedly be leaving behind in Paris, because two injured men of their age would raise more and more suspicion as word of the rebellion traveled. That kind of attention was exactly what could get Enjolras thrown into jail.

“I will have to send you letters concerning my own healing process as well, then, if you will be so kind as to send your new address to my rooms here in Paris,” Grantaire manages eventually.

“Will you not be leaving with me? I know I haven’t been the kindest, but the city is no longer a safe place for either of us. It’s true that two injured men will draw more attention, but Jean has promised us safe transport out of the city and the uniforms of rail workers to help disguise our injuries as ones sustained on the job. I had thought we could find a town somewhere rural and heal there, then return together when we are both strong enough.”

Grantaire freezes for a second, then a shy smile spreads across his face as he realizes that he is part of Enjolras’s ‘we’. Enjolras is leaving Paris not until he and the city have healed, but until he and Grantaire have healed. They will leave together, heal together, and return together when Paris is ready to welcome them back. They have lost so much, but they have not lost each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Sorry for any inaccuracies; I tend to pass out if I get too in depth with intense medical stuff and also didn't feel like researching 1800s medicine for a fanfic because I've got finals to deal with. I did research public transport though, and France was building its railroads in the early-mid 1800s, so that sort of works.
> 
> This was inspired by [this post](https://g-hostly-g.tumblr.com/tagged/when-you-have-to-study-a-lot-but-tumblr-is-life) from g-hostly-g on tumblr
> 
> Anyway, I'm [HMS-Chill](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hms-chill) on tumblr for fic stuff and [Hschill5](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hschill5) for anything else! If you wanna leave a comment/kudos/whatever either here or over on tumblr, I'd love that! Cheers!


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